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Woods v. State4/7/1999
r, and she obviously knew that she had previously suffered a stroke. In addition, Woods did not show that she could in a timely fashion find an expert that would provide the testimony she claimed she could offer; she was also unable to provide Judge Lombardi with a name.
Moreover, there was an insufficient proffer that strokes did in fact affect or invalidate the HGN results; from Woods' argument below, it is unclear whether she was claiming that it was the stroke or the stroke medication that would affect the test. In this case, Woods testified that she was no longer taking stroke medication; thus, if only the medication affected the HGN, then such testimony would have been irrelevant.
On this record Judge Lombardi did not abuse her discretion in determining that an expert on this issue would not have affected the outcome of the trial. The HGN was but a small part of the evidence against Woods. In addition to the trooper's testimony, the jury heard testimony about Woods' behavior from a Wasilla police officer who assisted DeCoeur, heard portions of the audiotape, and saw the results from the Intoximeter - a .098 BAC. Finally, the jury heard Woods herself testify that she had had a "few beers" that day.
To the extent that Woods wanted to undermine the trooper's testimony that her performance on the HGN was commensurate with a .10 BAC, Judge Lombardi had already granted Woods' request to compose a limiting jury instruction. In addition, Woods could argue in her closing that DeCoeur did not know how a stroke would affect the HGN test. As for Woods' desire to show the trooper was being untruthful when he answered that he was unaware of how a stroke would affect the results of the HGN, Judge Lombardi did not abuse her discretion by ruling that she would not allow an expert witness to testify as to "what [DeCoeur] may or may not know." In light of the other evidence of intoxication, Woods has not shown that the expert testimony would have had an appreciable impact on the verdict. Based on the record, Judge Lombardi did not abuse her discretion when she did not allow a continuance.
Woods next contends that Judge Lombardi erred when she restricted Woods' cross-examination of the state's expert witness, Kathryn Echols, from the state crime lab. A trial Judge has wide discretion in determining the proper scope of, and in controlling, the cross-examination of witnesses.
The state called Echols as an expert on intoxication, impairment, and the Intoximeter 3000. She testified, among other things, that in her opinion persons with a BAC of .08 percent are too impaired to drive. When asked if there were people who disagreed with that proposition, Echols indicated that she had not heard of any in her field who did. Woods then attempted to ask Echols why various efforts in the legislature to change the presumption of intoxication from .10 percent to .08 percent had been unsuccessful. Other than allowing Echols to testify that such efforts had been unsuccessful, Judge Lombardi stopped further inquiry. Below, Woods argued that she wanted to show that there was "a lot of testimony given at those hearings" and that after "all the testimony, . . . the legislature decided to leave [the presumption] at .1."
Generally, an abuse of discretion occurs only when the jury fails to receive adequate information to allow it to understand and evaluate fairly a witness' potential bias, prejudice, or motive. Applying this standard, we find no abuse of discretion. While Woods, as she argues on appeal, may have intended to impeach Echols by asking her whether other experts disagreed with her, Woods did not actually accomplish this below. At trial, she was preparing to ask E
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